In his first few hours in office, Joe Biden took a number of actions, all by executive fiat, that will have negative impacts on the state of Alabama.
On day one Biden effectively took away a Congressional seat from Alabama, with an Executive Order that will count illegal aliens towards Congressional apportionment. This will reward California, New York, and other states that have been illegal immigration friendly. More importantly, it will severely hurt the states like ours that have rejected illegal aliens and sanctuary cities.
In addition to his executive actions, Biden and his Cabinet nominees have floated other liberal policy ideas that they hope to enact in the coming term. Alabamians are all too familiar with one of these policy proposals.
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a Democratic Presidential nominee and now appointed to be Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, floated the idea of a gas tax hike in his confirmation hearing with the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
The national gas tax has not been raised since 1993, when Congress approved a 4.3 cent per gallon increase. The idea has been brought up since 1993, even as recently as 2017, but many Republicans in Congress have said raising taxes is a non-starter.
Additionally, Buttigieg suggested they may try to tie gas tax raises to inflation, meaning the tax could increase over time without Congress having to approve it again.
The political climate is currently well-suited for Democrats to increase taxes on whatever they please. For the first time since 2008, they control the House, Senate, and Presidency. As Republicans are now well-aware, everything floated by Democrats could come to fruition.
This puts Alabamians in a difficult, but familiar, position. In 2019, the Alabama legislature, at the behest of Governor Kay Ivey, passed an unpopular ten cent per gallon gas tax throughout the state. The tax was raised six cents per gallon in October 2019, another 2 cents per gallon in October 2020, and is scheduled to be raised a final 2 cents per gallon in October of this year.
With this being the case, Alabamians could be particularly hard hit by a gas tax increase by both the federal and state governments. While the exact numbers from the Biden Administration have not yet been discussed, Alabamians could be in store for a double-dipping that could raise gas prices in the neighborhood of 15 cents per gallon from what they were paying in early 2019 before the Rebuild Alabama Act became law.
Of course, a global pandemic was nothing that legislators could have seen coming, but nonetheless, it is not a good look for state lawmakers raising taxes during the COVID pandemic, which is exactly what happened, albeit automatically, this past October.
The last thing they wanted was the federal government to do the same thing at nearly the same time.
To make matters worse for Alabama Republicans, Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate are expected to vehemently oppose the gas tax if it makes it into a bill.
The optics of Alabama Republicans raising taxes while their national counterparts refuse to do the same could be devastating and could have major impacts in 2022 when they are up for re-election. It will reignite a hot-button issue that many legislators were hoping would be long forgotten by the time their re-elections rolled around.
Having a national debate over this issue will certainly put it fresh in voter’s minds when they go to vote in 2022.
But maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is just what we as voters need. It will be clear as day if Mo Brooks, Robert Aderholt, Mike Rogers, Gary Palmer, Barry Moore, and Jerry Carl vote against a gas tax raise while your local State Rep. or State Senator did not.
The voters tried to say back in 2019 that they would not stand for this. That they would remember. Well, now we’ll see.
In the meantime, as is usually the case, we the people will be the biggest losers in all of this. The government will try to get their double-dip, and it seems that just like the first time we will have little say in the matter.
Start saving your pennies for gas now. You’re going to need them.
Will Hampson is a graduate of Alabama A&M. He hosts Will Hampson Weekends on WVNN in Huntsville, Alabama. You can follow and contact him via Twitter @thewillhampson.
